


Leave Out All The Rest

by AtropaAzraelle (Polyoxyethylene)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Crushes, Flash Fic Collection, Fluff, M/M, Toilet humour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 00:33:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 6,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16964412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyoxyethylene/pseuds/AtropaAzraelle
Summary: A collection of prompts and requested works from tumblr that haven't previously been here.Themes:Kisses -1. "On a place of insecurity"2. "Out of jealousy"3. "Why haven't you kissed me yet?"Sappy -4. "Can I kiss you?"5. "I didn't want you to see this."6. "Can I touch you?"7. "Who did this?"Miscellaneous -8. "Self defence"9. "Aggression"10. "Drinking"11. "Prosecco"





	1. A kiss on a place of insecurity

Ignis awoke to an empty bed. He could feel the absence of Gladio without having to reach out to find him. He reached out anyway, to be sure of what he already knew. The sheets were cold under his fingers. Gladio had been gone for some time.

There weren’t any sounds that Ignis could hear; nothing from the bathroom, and nothing from the kitchen. He slid from the bed, gently placing bare feet on the cool wooden floor before he stood and made his way across the room to the door.

Ignis turned the handle with deliberate care, feeling the grind and squeal of the metal as much as he heard it. He eased the door open by degrees, listening.

Gladio’s slow, even breaths were coming from the sofa. Ignis knew what that meant, and he padded into the room on careful toes, heedless of his own nudity.

He found Gladio’s knee with his hand, sliding his fingers up a bare thigh covered in downy hair, all the way to the curve of Gladio’s hips. Gladio murmured, shifting in his doze, rolling over to face Ignis as Ignis’s hand stroked up a contoured stomach.

“Iggy,” Gladio murmured, hazy and sleep-drunk.

“Shh,” Ignis hushed, his voice a whisper in the dark. “What was it this time?” he asked, finding the spot between Gladio’s pectoral’s and resting his palm there, over Gladio’s heart.

“Same old,” Gladio said, sliding his hand up Ignis’s and tugging him into a gentle embrace. Ignis acquiesced, settling his knee on the sofa inside Gladio’s own and shifting his weight over and down, until he was lying atop Gladio, his head resting on Gladio’s chest. Gladio folded his arms around his back. “It never stops.”

“You can talk to me about it, you know,” Ignis reminded him, gently.

“You’ve got enough going on,” Gladio rumbled, and with Ignis’s ear to his chest it was a rumble. A low purr that Ignis could feel with his entire body, temporarily drowning out the steady thud of Gladio’s heart.

“A burden I share with you,” Ignis pointed out. “Allow me to reciprocate?”

Gladio sighed. “I keep dreaming about it,” he admitted, curling his fingers into Ignis’s hair and gently stroking through it. “Noct comes back, and I’m not ready. I’m not strong enough. I keep dreaming that Ardyn’s run him through, or you and you’re choking in my arms,” he went quiet, and Ignis heard him swallow before he pressed on, “or I’m late, and you’re already dead.”

“I’m not,” Ignis said.

“You nearly were,” Gladio replied, his fingers continuing to stroke and comb through Ignis’s hair. “What if I’m not strong enough, Iggy? What if when it comes to it I can’t protect him, or you? What use is a Shield that can’t protect what’s most important?”

Ignis sighed, lifting his head away from Gladio’s fingers. He pressed a lingering kiss to Gladio’s chest, brushing his lips over Gladio’s steadily beating heart. “I don’t have an answer for you,” he admitted, tilting his cheek into Gladio’s hand as it settled against his face. A lone thumb brushed over the bottom of a starburst scar Ignis had never seen for himself. “We just have to give it everything we have, and hope it’s enough.”


	2. A kiss out of jealousy

“Do you think somebody should rescue him?”

Gladio looked over to where Noct’s attention was focused and immediately regretted it. He’d been trying not to look all evening.

“She’s got a hand on his ass,” Noct said, almost as if he was idly plucking away at the threads of Gladio’s restraint with deliberate care.

Gladio looked over again. He couldn’t help himself. Ignis had been holding court all night, finding one girl and then another and another and another vying for his attention. Every time Gladio had looked over there had been a different, attractive woman taking up Iggy’s time. Some of them had just talked, sharing drinks and laughter with him, and others had wanted to dance, their hands roving over his chest or ass like he was a prime cut of meat.

“Iggy can take care of himself,” he said, looking away. He wasn’t going barrelling in there and getting between Ignis and the ladies, no matter how much he wanted to.  
No matter how much he wanted it to be his hands on Iggy’s ass.

“If you say so,” Noct said, with a careless shrug.

Gladio forced himself not to look back over again. It was his own fault, really. He’d told Iggy to take a load off, and to that end he’d insisted that he be the designated driver, and Ignis have a drink. He needed to stop putting his own fun on hold for the sake of Noct sometimes.

Clearly Ignis, with a couple of drinks in him, became a magnet for the ladies. Gladio couldn’t blame them; Iggy had his hair swept out of his face, and a nicely fitted shirt that hung open to show his collarbones, and was getting just that fraction too tight around the biceps now Iggy had started his polearm training. His trousers weren’t much better; when he stood just so you could see how they clung and highlighted the cleft of his ass.

“You’re staring again,” Noct said.

“Shut up,” Gladio told him, and nursed his soda.

Ignis dropped into the chair beside Gladio a few moments later, his cheeks flushed and brushing his hair back into some semblance of order where it resolutely refused to stay put. Individual strands hung over his forehead, giving him a slightly dishevelled appearance that only made him more attractive.

“Having fun?” Gladio asked, trying not to sound irked by it. He did want Iggy to have fun. He’d just not expected Iggy to have fun by flirting with every woman in the joint.

“Yes,” Ignis said, flashing Gladio a smile that cut through his grumpiness like an expertly sharpened knife. He looked like he was genuinely having a good time. “Although they’re starting to get handsy, so I thought a tactical retreat was in order.”

“We saw,” Noct said. “Have you still got your wallet?”

“It’s in my jacket,” Ignis replied.

“Cool,” Noct said, “‘cause it’s your round.”

Ignis glanced back out across the bar, and the gaggle of young women he’d only just escaped. Gladio didn’t really want to lose him to them again either, so he turned and fished in the pockets of the jacket slung over the back of his chair until he located Iggy’s wallet, and then handed it to Noct. “You go, he won’t make it back a second time.”

Noct flashed a grin as he took possession of Ignis’s wallet, and left the table, slipping easily around the group of ladies.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Ignis asked, watching him go.

“They won’t be interested in him,” Gladio answered.

Ignis turned to look at him, a sharply calculating look in his eyes. “Did something happen?”

Gladio looked away, lifting his soda to his lips and totally not trying to hide behind the action instead of looking at Ignis. He was too quick, sometimes, even when he’d had a drink. “Nope,” he answered, before taking a drink.

“You seem awfully tense.”

Gladio tried to give a careless shrug in response.

“You know, you don’t have to drink to flirt if that’s what you’d rather be doing. I can stay here and keep Noct company.”

Gladio frowned into his drink, and made himself take another mouthful before he put the glass down. “I don’t wanna flirt,” he said. Not with them, anyway, he thought. “You should have fun, it’s fine.”

“Gladio, look at me.”

Gladio turned, and found himself caught in piercing green eyes. “You’re jealous,” Ignis said. Gladio opened his mouth to protest, and found a denial wouldn’t come. He was, but not of Ignis.

Instead he turned away again. However much he wanted to be lost in those eyes, and to have Iggy’s full and undivided attention on him, it was uncomfortable when he was using it to peel back Gladio’s armour. 

Long fingers came up and pressed against his cheek, turning him back to face Ignis. Gladio swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry despite his drink. “You have two choices,” Ignis said. “You can pretend you’re not, or you can address it, and do something about it. Which will it be?”

It was hard to look Ignis in both eyes at once, and Gladio realised a second too late that Iggy still had his hand against his cheek. “What can I do about it?” he asked, his heart thundering in his ears.

Iggy smiled at him. “I’m a man of words, you’re the man of action. You could always take action, if words are failing you.”

Gladio swallowed again, and closed his eyes to lean forward. The idea that Ignis would reject the movement made his heart hammer and his stomach flip. He waited, with every agonising second that he moved forward, for that hand to leave his face, for Ignis to tell him no.

Their lips met. Gladio could smell the whiskey on Iggy’s breath, feel the warmth of it as he exhaled against Gladio’s skin. his lips were soft, and they pursed against Gladio’s own as Ignis kissed him with innocent sweetness.

Gladio opened his eyes again to find Ignis smiling at him. “Better?” he asked.

Gladio nodded, not trusting his voice in that instant. He wanted to lean forward and kiss Ignis again, so he did. This time he put more purpose and intent in it, his lips brushing over Iggy’s, and his breath caught when Iggy’s tongue touched his bottom lip.

“For the record,” Ignis said in an amused whisper, his lips brushing against Gladio's as he spoke, “the ladies I’ve been speaking to all night didn’t think you were being very subtle, either.”


	3. "Why haven't you kissed me yet?"

The World of Ruin. That was the whisper on the streets, the colloquialism that had sprung up to refer to their here and now, the encroaching darkness, the maddening beasts, the multiplying daemons. The World of Ruin.

It sounded like something soiled and sullied, like the whole world as one had been tainted by the Scourge. All they had known and loved had been ruined. The world was slowly being destroyed before their eyes.

Ignis remembered the sunlight, and the grass, and leaves on trees, and the sight of a herd of Spiracorns galloping across the road in front of the car. He remembered the lights of Altissian nights, and the sea breeze, and he remembered the sillhouettes of the Catoblepas against the sunset at the Slough.

He hadn’t seen the world come to ruin. But he’d felt it. He’d felt the taint creep in. He’d felt it in the chasm that had opened up between all of them.

Himself and Prompto.

Himself and Gladio.

It hadn’t been for lack of trying. They’d sworn to stick together and keep the world safe while they found Noct, while they waited for Noct. But the Darkness had swallowed first the day, and then the smiles, and then the familiarity.

Once he and Gladio had shared a bed, made fervent love as quietly as they could so the hotel’s thin walls didn’t give them away. They’d swapped kisses and promises in the light of a campfire. They’d made idle plans for a better future when Noct was King, arguing with smiles on their faces about decorating, and how much kitchenware was too much.

His blindness had been the first wedge driven between them, but it hadn’t lasted, or he hadn’t thought it had. They’d argued, and barely spoken, and Ignis had known that Gladio couldn’t bring himself to look at him from the way he always sounded as if he was speaking to the table, or across Ignis’s shoulder.

But it had got better. Gladio had made promises and apologies on their way to Tenebrae, swearing to Ignis that he’d never let anything come between them again. That no matter what, he had Ignis’s back. That he’d always be there.

It had started small. Trips away to this outpost or that, long escorts of supplies, or refugees that had kept Gladio away for days, and then weeks, while Ignis taught himself to fight again.

Prompto was the same. He spent three months helping safely transport Wiz’s chocobos. When he’d returned to Lestallum Ignis had been investigating the royal tomb on Ravotogh, and Gladio had been at Meldacio.

They became ships that passed in the night.

Gladio and Ignis and Prompto shared an apartment in Lestallum but they were almost never there at the same time. They left voice messages, Gladio having taken ownership of some of the salvaged radio equipment from a military base early on so that they could leave each other notes, or just let each other know when they’d been, and when they might be back. Those messages had become more and more cursory as time had worn on. Prompto’s bright, bubbly, “Hi, guys!” greeting had faded to him just telling them when and where he’d be. Gladio’s messages had got briefer, containing only the fact, and fewer well wishes.

When Ignis had returned to the apartment he’d expected it to be empty. It always was. It always had been.

“Iggy.”

Hearing Gladio’s nickname for him sent a shiver of familiarity and nostalgia down Ignis’s spine. “You’re home,” he said, superfluously in his surprise.

“Yeah,” Gladio answered. He sounded as thrown by finding someone else in the apartment at the same time as himself as Ignis felt. “Got back yesterday.”

Ignis smiled at him, and then found himself unsure of what to say. It felt like talking to a stranger, but this was Gladio, a man he’d once sworn to love. 

“You look good,” Gladio said, into Ignis’s silence, and Ignis mentally kicked himself for letting it hang as it had. “You changed your hair.”

Ignis felt his mouth fall open, to tell Gladio it was hardly new, but then he realised that it had been so long since he’d last seen Gladio that Gladio had never seen his new hairstyle. “Yes,” he said, “it’s easier to style in the mornings this way.”

“You could just wear it down,” Gladio said, and there was a lilt in his tone that suggested he knew how ridiculous that suggestion was to Ignis. It was as if he was teasing, and Ignis felt his heart jump giddily.

Gladio still had that effect on him.

“I thought you knew me?” Ignis asked, with a similar teasing lilt. Gladio’s laughter rippled down his spine and settled in his gut. It had been so long since he’d heard it that he’d forgotten how much he missed it.

“Some things never change,” Gladio said, and if Ignis listened he could hear the smile.

“So why haven’t you kissed me yet?” Ignis asked.

“You still want me to?”

If Ignis didn’t live with his eyes closed behind his glasses, he’d have closed his eyes at that question, at the fact Gladio even had to ask that question. “Yes.”

Gladio’s strides were long, and quick, his boots thudding against the floor as he crossed the room. Ignis felt his face caught between two hands, fingers curling into the hair at the back of his head, and then Gladio’s mouth was there, against his own. It was urgent to begin with, his lips pressing hard against Ignis’s.

It softened when Ignis coiled his arm around Gladio’s waist and sank his other hand into his hair. He opened his mouth against Gladio’s, letting him in, letting him take and claim, and clear away the months of distance. Gladio’s fingers sank down, one settling against the side of his neck, the other finding his shoulder, slipping down under his arm, sliding around and up his back to tug Ignis as close as Gladio could into himself. Ignis felt enveloped in warmth, and he relaxed into Gladio’s body.

When Gladio pulled his mouth away it was to settle his forehead against Ignis’s, his breath gusting hot against Ignis’s mouth. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“So have I,” Ignis whispered, before tilting his head to find Gladio’s mouth again.


	4. "Can I kiss you?"

The heavens opened.

Rain pelted from the sky in great fat droplets, drenching everything in a matter of seconds. Ignis felt each drop ricochet off his skin, splashing on impact, spreading the soothing chill of water further, and he cradled his papers protectively against his chest.

A hand pressed flat to his back, searing heat marking his skin through his sodden shirt, and he was pushed. “Come on,” Gladio said, urging him towards a coffee shop awning that was closer than the car. Ignis didn’t need telling twice, and he ran, long legs covering the distance in a few easy strides.

Gladio was laughing when they came to a halt under the paltry shelter. Water was dripping off Ignis’s eyelashes, and nose, and from the ends of his crestfallen and sodden hair. “I think it went down my ear,” he complained, screwing up his eyes and tilting his head at the strange, cold tickling sensation that was invading.

Gladio ran one glistening hand up into his hair, brushing the locks back off his face, and then gave his head a vigorous shake. More water pelted Ignis, and he recoiled, protecting his papers from it once more. “Sorry,” Gladio said, before Ignis had the chance to complain, but he didn’t sound it, and when Ignis looked up at him through his rain spattered glasses, he didn’t look it either.

“I hope this stops as quickly as it started,” Ignis said, risking another look at the work he’d been protecting from the sudden downpour. It was soggy at the edges, but not ruined, yet.

Gladio gave a murmur. “I dunno,” he said, “it looks like someone pissed in the Tidemother’s cornflakes. It might be here to stay.” He did not sound as if this caused him anything other than amusement, and Ignis looked at him again, finding his view obscured by bubbles of distortion on the lenses.

Gladio reached out with both hands and carefully eased them off his face. Ignis drew back from the movement at first, but then he let Gladio remove them and examine them. “You got anything to dry these with?” he asked.

Ignis looked down at himself. He was soaked right through the back of his shirt, and he could feel his trousers clinging to every curve of his legs. “I fear it might only make it worse,” he answered. “I have a spare cloth in the car.”

Gladio looked at the car, parked halfway down the street and obscured by sheets of heavily falling water. It thundered on the awning above their heads, and ran in cascades from the guttering, surrounding them in their very own miniature walls of water. He gave Ignis’s glasses a single firm shake, dislodging as much of the rain off them as he could. “I’ll get it,” he said. “Give me the keys.”

Ignis looked at him as if he’d grown another head. “Don’t be ridiculous, you’ll get soaked.”

Gladio gave a shrug, and flicked Ignis’s glasses again, examining his handiwork. “You need to get them out of the rain, right?” he asked, nodding towards the papers still bundled in Ignis’s arms. “Give me the keys, I’ll bring the car over.”

Ignis felt indecision tear at his insides. He couldn’t allow Gladio to go out in the rain again for his sake, especially not if it might stop in another couple of minutes. Even if it didn’t, it was Ignis’s work, Ignis’s car, and Ignis’s problem. “You hold these,” he said, holding the papers out towards Gladio, “and I’ll get the car.”

Gladio shook his head, moving a step closer and pushing Ignis’s papers back towards himself. “It’s just water,” he said. 

“Still,” Ignis pressed, “I couldn’t ask you to–”

“You can pay me back.”

Ignis paused, dumbfounded as Gladio expertly deflected his protest and crashed through his defences. He rallied, as hard and as fast as he could. “I suppose I could pick up some cup noodles from the shop,” he offered.

“I’ll take that as part payment,” Gladio agreed.

Ignis frowned. He got the impression Gladio was angling for something, but he wanted Ignis to work out what, without giving him any clues. “I don’t know–”

He stopped when Gladio smiled at him, holding his glasses back up to him. Without giving Ignis a chance to take them back, Gladio moved forward, until Ignis felt the arms delicately sliding through his hair over his ears, and the warmth of Gladio’s hands at either side of his face. Ignis’s heart drowned out the drumming sound of the rain on the awning, and he found himself entranced. “You’ll think of something,” Gladio said.

Ignis wasn’t thinking much of anything at all. His brain was filled with fuzz, with white noise, utterly and completely silent as if it had dropped all of its notes and didn’t know where to start picking them back up. A warm thumb brushed down the side of his cheek in a gesture that was unquestionably fond, and remarkably intimate. The world seemed to be filled with warm brown eyes, and a rogueish smile that had no right to be as charming as it was.

He blinked, snapping back to himself when a hand dipped into his back pocket and retrieved his car keys. All the noise came rushing back, and between his ears the part that he never allowed to take control, the part that wanted to take risks, to go on the rooftops at night and watch the stars, and explore ancient ruins, and eat street food of questionable hygiene, screamed.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked.

Gladio looked at him, his attention snapping back to Ignis where it had begun to turn away towards the car, and the rain. Ignis felt his chest grow cold, and his stomach drop several inches. The rational part of his brain took over, stuffing the wanton risk taking part back into its box and threw itself into damage control. “I–”

Gladio’s eyes were warm, and his smile was both delighted, and victorious. “Told you you’d think of something,” he said, cutting Ignis off before he’d even begun, and brushed his fingers over Ignis’s jaw to cup his cheek.

Ignis fell silent again as Gladio’s face filled his vision. Warm, soft lips brushed against his own, and wiry stubble caught as his chin. Gladio pulled back an inch, no more, and Ignis felt himself being sucked into that warm gaze.

He swallowed, closed his eyes, and leant forward.


	5. I didn't want you to see this

When Noct was dropped off for his combat practice by Cor, Gladio knew there was something up. “Iggy stuck in another meeting?” he asked, giving the Prince a once over, and wondering if it was a meeting that had lasted all day because there was no way in hell Iggy was letting Noct walk out of the door wearing a creased shirt under normal circumstances.

Noct gave him the nonplussed look of teenagers the world over. “Specs is sick,” he said.

Something inside Gladio’s stomach lurched, but he pushed it aside. “What’s up with him?” he asked. It wasn’t like Ignis to get sick, or rather, it wasn’t like Ignis to let being sick get in his way. He kept a well stocked medicine cupboard and attacked the slightest hint of a sniffle as if he was waging all out chemical warfare against the virus. He didn’t have time to get sick, he said.

Noctis shrugged one shoulder. “He didn’t say, just said he’d be fine in a couple of days. He’s been texting me about test revision and homework all day so he can’t be that bad.”

Gladio frowned, but kept the internal voice that said Iggy would only stop reminding Noct about revision and homework if he died to himself. He shook it off, reminding himself that the last thing Ignis would want would be for others to stop doing what they needed to, and pulled a broadsword from the rack, holding it out for Noct. “Okay,” he said, pushing thoughts of Ignis from his mind, “let’s do some basic drills and then see if you can actually hit me today.”

He put Noct through his paces, and maybe it was because he was worried about Iggy that Noct managed to catch him with a glancing blow across the shoulder, or maybe the training was just paying off. Gladio wasn’t about to rain on Noct’s parade by making excuses for himself. Still, the moment Noct was heading out of the doors he picked up his phone and fired off a text to Ignis.

>> Noct says ur sick. U ok?

He showered and changed, and when he’d done that, a reply still hadn’t come through. With a frown, he resolved to check up on Ignis. It wasn’t a huge detour to hit him up in his apartment before heading home. He’d made it to the parking lot and was in the middle of stashing his gear in his car when his phone pinged with a message notif.

>> Fine. Just a bug. Don’t worry about me.

Gladio read it three times, and scowled heavily at his phone. ‘A bug’ was the sort of thing he considered an Iggy-ism. It managed to be utterly non-descript, and almost suspiciously downplay whatever it was failing to describe at the same time.

>> Need me 2 get u ne thing?

>> No. Thank you.

Gladio scowled at that reply too. Ordinarily the things Gladio did to common grammar and innocent verbiage in his text messages was a crime worthy of comment, in Ignis’s words. But he hadn’t said a thing about ‘ne thing’. Not even a snarky crack about needing Gladio to apologise to the dictionary.

Something was really wrong.

He shut his car door and jogged his way towards the Citadel apartments. Ignis was on one of the upper floors, giving him a great view of Insomnia’s skyline, but also being a pain in the ass to get to that time the elevator had broken down and taken a week to fix. He’d done the trek up the stairs a couple of times, then, helping Ignis bring his grocery shopping home, and his legs had made their protest known. He wasn’t about to try it again now, so he stood and waited for the elevator to reach him, and then to make its slow, trundling way up to Iggy’s floor.

He made his way down the corridor, scenarios racing through his mind. Maybe Iggy would be shivering, tucked up in bed, unable to get warm, surrounded by used tissues, with a red nose and an overflowing bin. He had to be pretty sick, whatever was wrong.

That was why he took his spare key for Iggy’s apartment, and let himself in. He didn’t want to drag Iggy away from a comfortable nest of misery to answer the door, and Ignis had given him the key last year.

There was a smell, when he opened the door. Bleach overlying something else, something acidic and foul. His nose wrinkled, and he kicked his shoes off and made his way in, calling, “Iggy, it’s me,” as he did. There was no answer, and a distinct lack of Ignis in the living area and kitchen. “You okay?” he called.

A noise reached his ears. It was something hitting water, given the strange echoing quality of being surrounded by porcelain, and the strained, heaving sounds of someone being violently sick.

Gladio frowned, knocked, and pushed open the bathroom door. Ignis was sat on the floor, eyes watering and face flushed, wiping his mouth with a bit of tissue. His skin was pale and waxy, which only made the redness around his eyes look more obvious. “Shit,” he said.

“I didn’t want you to see this,” Ignis said, his voice weak, and tired as he finished wiping his mouth with as much dignity as he could muster given that the contents of his stomach were splattered around the inside of the toilet.

Gladio huffed. “I’ve seen worse,” he said. He gestured with his thumb back towards Iggy’s bedroom. “Go get in bed, I’ll clean up in here.”


	6. Can I touch you?

The door gave a distinctive thunk and click as it was opened, and the noise alone was enough to drag Gladio into wakefulness. He was off the bed and making his way into the tiny sitting room before Ignis had even put his bag down on the wooden floor. His shoes clicked as he walked, the precise, even noise being the only sound in the room.

But Ignis knew he was there anyway. His face turned to Gladio’s direction, and Gladio could see him listen for that moment before he asked, “Gladio?”

It was impressive, and terrifying if you thought about it. Iggy’s hearing was as sharp as his mind, and he’d honed both to compensate for his lack of sight with stunning efficiency. Gladio had tried, one day, when Ignis hadn’t been here to call him ridiculous for it, to navigate the tiny apartment they kept with his eyes closed. He’d made it almost a whole minute, a whole minute of feeling around with his arms and taking tiny shuffling steps, before he’d stubbed his toe and knocked his drink over.

Ignis got around without flailing his arms around like an idiot any more. Hell, he didn’t even use the stick indoors any more. Ignis walked with the same proud, straight back he’d borne before he went blind, his chin up, and his confidence shining.

Gladio hadn’t thought he could love Ignis more than he had, but watching him make the transformation from crippled to confident had made Gladio fall all the harder. Ignis was stronger than anyone else Gladio knew. His wounds had only made him more beautiful.

“What gave me away?” he asked, grinning as he crossed the floor to Ignis.

“I can hear you breathing,” Ignis answered, a smile gracing his perfect, scarred lips as Gladio ensnared him in his arms. “Have you been back long?”

“A couple of days,” Gladio answered. He tucked his nose into Iggy’s hair and inhaled the scent of him. He still smelled of hair products, the apocalypse being no excuse to look shabby, in Ignis’s words, but the scent of coffee and clean clothing that Gladio associated with him were gone.

“Can I touch you?” Ignis asked.

Gladio bit his lip. It was part of their routine, now, in this broken world. They reunited, they marvelled at each other’s continued existence, and then they looked for the marks that told them how close they’d come to losing each other.

Gladio looked with his eyes, stripping Ignis of his clothing piece by piece, kissing each new scar he found and thanking the Astrals for whatever intervention they might have offered that had seen Ignis through it and brought him back once more.

Ignis looked with his fingers, tracing his fingertips over Gladio’s skin, inch by careful inch, adding whatever new bumps and gouges he found to his mental map of Gladio’s body.  
“Yeah,” he agreed, and took Iggy’s hand in his own. It was the work of a second to open the clasp on his glove, and slide the leather over his skin to reveal bare fingers. Ignis offered no resistance as Gladio guided his hand down and towards his left hip, just above his waistband. “Got one right there,” he said, softly, apologising with his tone where words wouldn’t suffice.

Ignis felt along the raised line on his skin, feeling the length and width of it before he rested his hand flat over it, and gave a small nod. His mouth turned down, and he sighed through his nose. Gladio swallowed, feeling Ignis’s pain like it was guilt in his own chest, and cupped Ignis’s cheek with his hand. “It’s the only other new one,” he said, “I promise.”

“We’ll see,” Ignis replied.

Gladio leaned in, and pressed a soft kiss to Ignis’s lips, feeling the raised little imperfection that marred Iggy’s mouth with his own. No matter how beautiful they showed Ignis to be, Gladio would bear any number of new scars himself if he could just take back these ones.


	7. Who did this?

When Ignis entered the apartment he was greeted by the soft sound of a piano duet. He paused, a memory turning over in the back of his mind. He’d learned to play this piece, once, although Noct had never been keen on it. It had been so long, now, since Ignis had sat at a piano, but he could still remember the movements of his fingers across the keys.

The apartment smelled different, too. He could smell the cologne Gladio had worn on their first date, and their second. It was spiced and warm, a little modern compared to Ignis’s usual preference, but Gladio had worn it well. He’d taken lungfuls of it the first time they’d kissed. Gladio’s scent and heat had surrounded him, and his lips had been soft and gentle against Ignis’s own. He hadn’t been Ignis’s first kiss, but he had been the best, and Ignis had returned home alone feeling both elated and slightly disappointed by that fact.

There were other smells mixed with the cologne; one was the sweet smell of a baked chiffon cake, and another was the tantalising aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

“Who did this?” he asked, listening to the sound of someone’s bare feet padding across the floor towards him. The weight and pace marked it as Gladio; only he could walk so lightly and so heavily at the same time.

“Iris helped,” Gladio admitted, right from the off. “Prompto too. Do you know how hard it is finding cake ingredients these days?”

Ignis smiled, listening to Gladio’s voice approaching until Gladio was close enough to slide his arms around Ignis and tug him in. Ignis found Gladio’s waist with his hands, feeling the silk shirt he’d bought Gladio years ago under his thumbs. “I might have an idea,” he said.

Gladio’s hands slid down his arms and to his wrists, and then slowly popped the buttons on the backs of Ignis’s gloves open. Ignis waited patiently as Gladio peeled his gloves off, first the left, then the right. Ignis’s left hand settled back against the silk of Gladio’s shirt, feeling the warmth and firmness that lay underneath the soft material.

Gladio gripped his right hand in coarse but gentle fingers and brought it up until Ignis could feel Gladio’s breath gusting warmly against his palm. Soft lips pressed into the centre of his hand, and Ignis could feel the rough scratch of recently trimmed stubble at Gladio’s upper lip against his skin. The bristles at Gladio’s chin were similarly rough and recently clipped, but not removed.

Never removed.

“You didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” Ignis said, sliding his hand along Gladio’s cheek and winding his fingers into his hair. It had grown long enough that Gladio could wear most of it in a stubby little ponytail now, and Ignis had found himself fond of carding his fingers through it of an evening.

“You’re worth it,” Gladio answered. “Happy birthday.”

Ignis found himself enveloped in the scent of that cologne once more as Gladio leaned forward. Soft lips pressed against Ignis’s own, and stubble scratched at his chin. Ignis let himself relax and be drawn in against the solid heat of Gladio’s body, tightening his fingers in Gladio’s hair as he opened up to Gladio’s kiss.


	8. Self defence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by this image posted by [DrunkFinalFantasy15](http://drunkfinalfantasy15.tumblr.com/post/169507333408/learning-from-the-master) on tumblr:
> 
>  

Gladio held his greatsword up against the onslaught with a scowl. Metal clanged against metal and the vibration went through his arm, but it was nothing but a huge waste of energy on his assailant’s part. Was he even trying to hit? Gladio couldn’t be sure. As far as he could tell, Noct was just wildly flailing his sword around in the dim hope of hitting something he was supposed to.

Keep that up and he was just as likely to take Prompto’s head off as he was an MT’s. He pulled his sword away at a break in the flurry of slashes, wound up, and heaved it down onto Noct, knocking him flat. “If you’re grabbed from behind I’ve got a helpful self defense tip,” he said, letting his sword disappear back into the aether. Noct looked up at him, sullen and out of breath, and clambered back to his feet. “Fart,” Gladio told him, “it’s the only way you’re getting away, fighting like that.”

Noct curled his upper lip at him. Clearly Noct hadn’t got his afternoon nap today. “I do fine,” he snapped, with all the strength and venom of a soggy twig.

“You fight like you’re button mashing in a video game,” Gladio replied, folding his arms. “You can’t just swing wildly and hope you hit something.” He jerked his head and unfolded his arms, “Now come on, back to basics, try again.”


	9. Aggression

The floor came up to meet Gladio with a smack that sent a painful shockwave through his ribs and knocked the air from his lungs. He grunted, but didn’t have the time to relish the pain before he had to roll. Iggy’s metal training lance collided with the floor a split second later, right where Gladio’s head had just been.

He drew his shield up against the next blow. The lance skidded over the metal with a shriek, and Gladio risked a peek over the top of his shield.

Ignis was there, face flushed and glistening, hair sticking to his forehead, eyes wild and alive with adrenaline and aggression. He’d never looked as hot as he did right then.


	10. Drinking

Ignis looked down at the miniature glass being slid in front of him, and then back up at the all too faux-innocent grin being flashed at him. “What is that?”

“A shot,” Gladio answered. “I’ll tell you what it’s called after.”

Ignis fixed Gladio with his best dead eyed gaze, which became an eyeroll as he heaved a weary sigh. “The name’s something amusingly sexual, I presume?”

“Aren’t they all?” Gladio asked in reply. Ignis watched him clasp his hands behind his back and bend down to pick the glass up with his lips, knocking the liquid inside clear into the back of his throat without so much as a grimace. He didn’t want to admit that it was an attractive trick, but the thought tickled at the back of his mind anyway.


	11. Prosecco

Ignis winced as Gladio drew the cork from the bottle with a loud crack, and a lot of froth which he caught in his mouth with a sucking sound. “Were you never taught how to uncork champagne?” he asked.

“It’s prosecco,” Gladio answered, as if that put paid to any complaint Ignis might have.

“That makes no difference,” Ignis told him. “The cork should be eased from the bottle, and the drink should sigh like a woman being pleasured. It should not bang and froth.”

Gladio looked down at the bottle in his hand, and then back to Ignis. After a moment of consideration he said, “Hate to break it to you Iggy, but that woman was faking it.”

Ignis took the bottle from Gladio’s unresisting hand, fixing his eyes on Gladio over the frames of his glasses. “Well I can assure you that I won’t be,” he said, “so make sure you’re paying attention later.”


End file.
